{"id":5627,"date":"2026-08-06T15:07:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T15:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5627"},"modified":"2026-08-06T15:07:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T15:07:21","slug":"how-an-nyc-nightlife-legend-tracked-down-the-pablo-escobar-of-animal-trafficking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5627","title":{"rendered":"How an NYC Nightlife Legend Tracked Down the Pablo Escobar of Animal Trafficking"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\u201cMy trajectory is so<\/em> weird,\u201d offers Eric Goode.<\/p>\n

\n\tBack in the early \u201880s \u2014 before directing music videos for Nine Inch Nails, launching iconic New York City destinations like the Bowery Hotel and Waverly Inn and creating the docu-phenomenon \u201cTiger King,\u201d but not long after showing a series of bondage-themed Etch A Sketch drawings alongside works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring \u2014 Goode opened Area, a nightclub in downtown Manhattan that catered to Andy Warhol and the art-world set. Along with its terribly cool clientele, Area became known for its d\u00e9cor and lavish installations, whose theme changed every six weeks. One of those themes, \u201cNatural History,\u201d called for live animals. So Goode turned to Tom Crutchfield, a reptile dealer in South Florida, to provide giant lizards and snakes.<\/p>\n

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\n\tIt seemed innocent enough. Crutchfield was the self-described \u201cMick Jagger of the reptile business\u201d who\u2019d supplied snakes to a number of Hollywood productions, including Spielberg\u2019s \u201cRaiders of the Lost Ark.\u201d Little did Goode know that in the late \u201890s, Crutchfield would be the target of Operation Chameleon, a joint effort by the U.S. Marshalls Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to block his smuggling of endangered snakes and turtles from Madagascar, flee to Belize, get extradited back to the U.S. and serve 30 months in prison. Now, Crutchfield is just one of several colorful characters profiled in \u201cMonsters of God,\u201d Goode\u2019s five-part HBO docuseries about the exotic reptile smuggling trade.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMonsters of God,\u201d which premieres Aug. 6, is a deeply personal project for the 68-year-old Goode, who grew up collecting reptiles and, through his nonprofit the Turtle Conservancy, has helped protect 65 turtle species and preserved over 70,000 acres of wildlife across the world. Unlike previous docuseries \u201cTiger King\u201d and \u201cChimp Crazy,\u201d he says \u201cMonsters of God\u201d is \u201cmore like a history lesson\u201d that explores every aspect of exotic reptile smuggling, from the dealers, smugglers and buyers (such as the San Diego Zoo) to the feds hunting them down.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wanted \u2018Monsters of God\u2019 to get all <\/em>sides of the story, which \u2018Blackfish\u2019 didn\u2019t.\u2019 They just got the detractors but didn\u2019t get SeaWorld,\u201d Goode explains. \u201cWe got the zoos, the feds, the reptile dealers, the collectors. I want to say that we [made] a balanced, real story to show that it\u2019s not so simple, and the supposed good guys might not be so good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGoode was inspired by Bryan Christy\u2019s 2008 book \u201cThe Lizard King,\u201d about father-son reptile-smuggling duo Michael and Raymond Van Nostrand (the latter also dabbled in cocaine trafficking). But \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada\u201d director David Frankel won the rights to the book. So in the late-aughts, Goode began making \u201cgonzo short little PSAs\u201d for the Turtle Conservancy \u2014 directed by his pals Josh and Benny Safdie, the former a producer on \u201cMonsters of God,\u201d and featuring stars like Christopher Walken and Slash cradling turtles \u2014 as well as a short film called \u201cThe Trophy Hunter.\u201d In 2012, he told another buddy, Fisher Stevens, that he wanted to make a documentary about the dark underworld of exotic reptile smuggling. Stevens replied, \u201cHow can you make this story without getting killed?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe thought the characters were too sketchy,\u201d recalls Goode,\u201d especially Anson Wong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKnown as the \u201cPablo Escobar of animal trafficking,\u201d Wong runs a complex network of wildlife smuggling operations out of Malaysia, capitalizing on the country\u2019s lax wildlife protection laws and easily-bought officials. \u201cMonsters of God\u201d sees Goode tracking Wong to the mountains of Penang for a sit-down interview.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was definitely fearful the day before meeting him and wondering how this was going to play out,\u201d Goode, who claims he\u2019s \u201chad his life threatened\u201d by numerous people over his work, remembers, adding, \u201cSometimes I wonder if I\u2019m just being stupid. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m brave by any stretch, but you just feel it out. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the most nervous I\u2019ve been, but it\u2019s certainly up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tHe also comes face-to-face with Mario Tabraue, a cocaine kingpin (and animal collector) who\u2019s been compared to \u201cScarface\u2019s\u201d Tony Montana and also appears in \u201cTiger King.\u201d Goode and the Safdies began filming interviews with Tabraue and Crutchfield in 2014, with Josh sporting spy-camera glasses to try to capture Tabraue undercover, but the footage looked like crap. He subsequently spent \u201ca bunch of money\u201d on a CNN pilot about people who trophy hunt and eat exotic animals, but the network \u201cdidn\u2019t need another old white guy\u201d since they still had Anthony Bourdain, plus it wasn\u2019t his finest work. Then \u201cTiger King\u201d and \u201cChimp Crazy\u201d got in the way.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnlike most documentary filmmakers, Goode casts a very wide net, using his considerable resources to shoot several different stories at once, hoping one hits. But he\u2019s adamant that \u201cthis is not an easy way to make money\u201d and doesn\u2019t recommend his unique approach.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m filming people that are killing sharks or monkeys that are being used for medical research in Mauritius or the guy who has the most rhino horns in the world in South Africa,\u201d he shares. \u201cI\u2019m filming so many things, and then you have to figure out what makes the best story and how it will resonate, and it takes a long time and a lot <\/em>of money to boil that down to finding the Joe Exotic and the story you want to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for \u201cTiger King\u201d and its flamboyant, incarcerated subject, Joe Exotic, Goode says he hasn\u2019t spoken to him in a long time. Despite Exotic\u2019s plea for a Trump pardon falling on deaf ears, Goode teases that he may<\/em> have a way to save him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have one card up my sleeve in a year or so to see If I can get him out of prison. I\u2019ll just say that,\u201d Goode teases, adding, \u201cHe did a lot of bad things\u2026 but he\u2019s getting older and I think he\u2019s done enough time, in my eyes. I\u2019m not one of these people who believes in putting people in prison and throwing away the key. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to get out of prison and try to kill anyone ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, he hopes \u201cMonsters of God\u201d will prove both entertaining and edifying, since that\u2019s always been his goal. \u00a0 <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJust like my club Area, I try to entertain people and in there I hope there\u2019s something people learn, so it\u2019s not completely frivolous,\u201d he says. \u201cNot everything has to be something that changes the world, but maybe it can make a little change.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cTiger King\u201d creator Eric Goode opens up about his new HBO docuseries \u201cMonsters of God,\u201d which probes the shady world of illegal reptile smuggling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[4395,622,4396,4397,4398],"class_list":["post-5627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv","tag-eric-goode","tag-hbo","tag-joe-exotic","tag-monsters-of-god","tag-tiger-king"],"yoast_head":"\nHow an NYC Nightlife Legend Tracked Down the Pablo Escobar of Animal Trafficking - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5627\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How an NYC Nightlife Legend Tracked Down the Pablo Escobar of Animal Trafficking - 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